Historically, private equity firms have shied away from financial services companies, especially banks. The highly regulated nature of the business was thought to be a poor fit. As prices of financial companies plunged, more private equity companies jumped in. The latest: Bloomberg reports that Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group and esteemed vulture Wilbur Ross are planning to bid for BankUnited Financial, a troubled Florida bank, which was all but done in by the real estate crisis. It has a deal with the OTS to sell itself.

This is the second private equity purchase of a financial firm this month. Barclays sold its iShares unit to such firms earlier. Blackstone and Carlyle have waded into the financial services as of late, Bloomberg notes. Blackstone bought Bayview Asset Management and Carlyle bought wealth manager Boston Private Financial Holdings. Not all financial investments have worked out. The biggest disaster was Texas Pacific Group's investment in Washington Mutual, which went belly up. 

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